Father's Day
by aardvark7734
Summary: Written for the Season 4 Premiere Anniversary Challenge.  As the titular holiday arrives, Chuck is tormented by a perplexing nightmare; Sarah urges him to confront Ellie to resolve family schisms in the wake of the spy world revelations.
1. Aftershock

_[A/N: This is kind of a departure for me, so it's hard for me to vouch for it. I usually go for more action-suspense heavy pieces and this one is more "experiential", I guess. The story came literally out of nowhere – I was just waking up one morning and it leaped into my consciousness. I hope, at the very least, it's mildly entertaining._

_I need to express my great thanks to the inimitable Course Jester for doing the beta reads and making many fine suggestions which have improved this piece substantially. You, sir, rock. Also, thanks to Frea O'Scanlin for looking at some key scenes and distracting me with shiny objects while she took a scalpel to them. It was eye-opening but very educational. I recommend the experience to everyone.]  
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_**Aftershock  
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A very quiet voice is talking. It's calming, soothing, even jovial. Chuck recognizes it immediately. It's his father. And all at once the feeling overwhelms him.

He's a child again.

He opens his eyes, and he's in his old house, playing with his old toys. The sight of them brings giddy joy and a sense of release. He lets the feeling surge through him unimpeded, sweeping away the tension in his mind and the heaviness in his heart. And in their absence, he feels free. At peace. Happy.

In front of him a confrontation looms; a lethal grudge match between the green army man in his right hand and the Lego robot in his left. Things aren't looking good for the army man, but Chuck knows it's too soon to tell. Sometimes the less imposing fighter has a secret and things end differently than—

A sudden, stabbing pain cuts into his head and Chuck winces, recoiling from the memory. Whatever that was, it wasn't fun and he wants to stay in the fun right now. After a moment's consideration, he decides he'll just let the robot win this time.

Outside, the day is sunny and warm and a golden glow spills into the living room. It's a perfect day for play.

Chuck doesn't see his father, but he hears him. There are questions about school, about his progress in science and math. He ignores them as long as he can, then replies with quick affirmations. Tiny little lies. Well, _maybe_ they were lies, he wasn't sure. Being sure meant he'd have to remember, and remembering was what made his head hurt. And this was _play _time.

When his father seems appeased by his answers, Chuck breathes a quiet sigh of relief, and turns his attention back to the epic battle on the carpet. Soon afterward, the robot has lost his right arm but manages to wage a furious counterattack with his head-mounted laser. The army man dives behind a yellow Tonka truck for cover and Chuck grins. _Ha! Things are getting good now_.

As his father drones on in the background, the sun tears across the sky outside at hyper-speed, like a time-lapse video. With eyes trained downward, Chuck senses more than sees the shadows from the furniture race along the walls, but he's determined not to let this oddness or his father's endless monologue distract him. Only when gloom settles on his arena and he can no longer see his own hands does he realize that no one seems to be making any effort to turn on the lights. Huffing in frustration, he puts down the two combatants.

_Fight called on account of darkness._

Chuck stands and pulls himself back to the world around him. Where _is_ his dad anyway? He can hear him but he doesn't seem to _be_ anywhere nearby. And where's Ellie? If it's dark outside she should be home already. He stands and looks around, trying to decide which way he might find his father or sister. But the darkness in all directions gives him pause, and he ends up calling out instead.

"Dad? Ellie?" For a few seconds there's only silence.

"I'm right here, Chuck," his dad says from over his shoulder, and Chuck spins – but there's no one there. Rattled, he backs away to start searching the house, calling to his father and sister as he runs first through the kitchen, then the bedrooms. He flips the light switch in every room, hoping the illumination will reveal his father engrossed in some inscrutable task or Ellie bunkered in at the end of an over-stretched phone cord.

But each room turns up empty, and soon the unexplored parts of the house are set off from the rest by the lingering of shadow. Struggling to keep his growing anxiety from blossoming into full-on panic, Chuck approaches the workshop door, the last place in the house his dad could conceivably be.

He hesitates. He's not supposed to go in there, but he's looked everywhere else. It's here or _nowhere_. As he ponders this dilemma, Chuck makes a disquieting observation: His father's constant dialogue has stopped.

"Dad?" he calls out. There's no reply.

Chuck looks up at the door, hoping that if he just waits a few seconds longer, his father will appear and this will all be over. But the seconds pass without event, and he's left with no choice. With a deep breath, he turns the doorknob.

The room is mostly dark, a single work lamp casting a bright cone in front of the desk as Chuck inches forward. His father is not immediately in evidence, but tall stacks of manuals sit on every flat surface, blocking his lines of sight.

"Dad? Are you in here?" he calls again. The sound of his voice seems small compared to the noise of the equipment around him. He takes a few steps in, craning his neck to peek around the nearest table. Somewhere in the room a computer cabinet whines noisily, setting Chuck's teeth on edge and bringing back unsettling memories of previous visits and his father's anger.

Gathering his courage, he takes two more steps.

Without warning, a fax machine chatters, its discordant answering tones a harsh counterpoint to the synchronous harmony of fans and motors. Unnerved, Chuck turns back for the door, and in blind flight he runs right into his father, who lets out a startled "oof" in surprise.

Chuck instinctively throws both arms around his dad's waist, his eyes closed and his cheek pressed hard against his father's chest. He's panting and his heart is racing. His father chuckles softly and lays his hands on his son's shoulders.

"Whoa there, Charles. Where's the fire?" He looks down bemusedly at his son.

Chuck doesn't answer, content to maintain his tight grip as relief washes over him. Eventually, the panic begins to subside, and he opens his eyes while trying to breathe normally.

Everything's going to be okay.

He steels himself to look up and face his father's reckoning, but something catches his eye. It's a monogram over the left breast of his father's bathrobe, a green and red shield with deer on both sides. The image triggers something in Chuck's brain, and he feels a twinge of pain. There's something _wrong_ with it. As he moves in for a closer look, something tickles his left ear, and when he reaches up to scratch it he feels something wet.

He looks at his hand; his fingers are red. "Dad, what—" he begins in a panicked voice as he follows the red trail up his father's chest to the ragged hole still pumping out fresh blood, running in rivulets down his father's exposed skin and soaking the robe. "Dad!" he screams—

And he _remembers_.

The truth bursts through the sharp pain flaring in his head. His father has been shot and has seconds to live. How and why are still lost to him, but there's no time to chase the answers. Grimacing but determined, he puts both of his hands over the wound and presses tightly. If he can just stop the bleeding, maybe he can save him.

He looks up into his father's face, and what he sees there stuns him. It's not the face of a gravely injured man. His father wears a thoughtful expression, even the hint of a smile. "It's alright now, Chuck," his father says soothingly. "It's going to be okay."

Baffled, Chuck looks down. How can any of what he sees be okay? The warm blood is pulsing out beneath his hands and seeping through the cracks in his fingers. It won't stop flowing no matter how hard he presses. _No one could lose this much blood and live._

"No!" he hears himself plead in a child's voice and with all his strength he pushes forward.

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He bolts awake into a sitting position, sucking in air and completely disoriented in the darkness. He stares at his hands in front of him, seemingly dark with blood, but in moments his vision clears revealing only skin. Ragged of breath, he takes in his surroundings, and the waking realization hits him all at once.

His father died three weeks ago.

He covers his eyes with his palms and lets out a small sob.

Immediately, loving arms encircle his shoulders and he hears her voice, raspy with sleep.

"Are you okay?"

He counts three breaths before he speaks. "I had a nightmare. It was— it was about…" he falters.

"Shhh," she hushes. "Tomorrow."

"But…"

"_Tomorrow,_" she repeats, squeezing his shoulders gently.

Bowing in acceptance, he rests his forehead on the slope of her neck and breathes her in, the warm scent both familiar and comforting. He's safe in her embrace. She lays her own head against his and pulls him closer, her hand cupping his cheek. They breathe together, inhales and exhales drifting to rhythm as his heart slows its frantic pounding and his mind quiets. Then she kisses his head and pulls his arm around her as she lays down, tucking herself into him.

He surrenders without another word.

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_[A/N Part II: Since this is part of the Season 4 Premiere Anniversary Challenge, all four chapters have been posted at once. No waiting!] _


	2. Echoes and Offerings

_**Echoes and Offerings**_

All around him, children of all shapes and sizes enjoyed Sunday at the pier. Chuck knew what it felt like to be one of them. He'd spent many a summer's day exploring this very boardwalk in his youth, accompanied by his mother, father and Ellie.

Those were happy days, even if the details were a bit hazy in his mind. His mother's features were particularly indistinct, their definition lost to the passage of time. And he couldn't easily picture Ellie, since she spent most of her time on the far side of their parents in an effort to avoid being seen with her spastic little brother. Only his father's face stood in sharp relief and, distressingly, it bore an expression eerily similar to the one from his nightmare: unperturbed, thoughtful and slightly amused.

_No_, Chuck revised. It wasn't _like_ the face from his nightmare. It _was_ the face from his nightmare. He frowned. His mind had apparently hijacked this memory for the dark vision, but it didn't seem to fit. The pier visits were the happiest of times, his father both attentive and in good spirits. Couldn't his brain have found a likeness more appropriate for pain and anguish?

Chuck grimaced. There were a lot more of those to select from.

As he pondered the possible significance of it all, darker imagery from the nightmare began to invade his thoughts, tainting memories of the pleasant family outing with flashes of spurting blood and his own desperate attempts to staunch it. Repulsed, he pulled himself back into the present with a noticeable shudder.

"What's wrong?" Sarah asked, reacting to the tug from their linked arms. Her tone was casual, but Chuck heard the underlying concern. For a moment, an effortless lie came to mind, a denial that would reassure her and free him from a painful explanation. But at the last instant he bit his lip rather than voice it.

Maybe the nightmare meant something, and maybe it didn't. Dr. Kowambe's tooth _had_ contained Ring data. Shaw really _had_ been alive. He'd told the truth about the former and lied about the latter and neither choice had turned out demonstrably better. But the third lie he'd told Sarah, the one he'd meant only to spare her from worry, had produced devastating consequences. At the DNI investigation, she'd stood up for Chuck armed only with her belief in him; that what he'd told her about his condition was the truth.

But it wasn't, and Shaw had burned her with it, making her look foolish in front of people who held her career and her life in their hands. When she'd turned to him, realization dawning, it had torn Chuck's heart in two. He didn't think he could bear seeing that look of shattered trust on her face ever again.

He took a deep breath and let it out audibly.

"I was thinking about the nightmare I had last night. It…it was about my father."

Sarah gave him a sad smile and Chuck felt the grip on his arm tighten. Her expression beckoned him to continue.

"I was a kid again, back in my old house, after mom left. My dad was there, and everything was fine for awhile, but…" His brow wrinkled. "Then he was shot just like… and I tried to stop the bleeding, but I had these little kid hands and I couldn't…" He looked down and dipped his head.

Sarah's eyes grew large, and she put her arm around Chuck's waist, casually guiding him to the rail at the edge of the boardwalk. He put both hands on it and stared out at the ocean. She stood beside him, stealing brief glances in his direction while surveying the beach. Her hand squeezed his side gently in support.

"The strange thing about it was when I looked up, he didn't seem to be in pain. He was even trying to tell me it was okay. That everything would be…" Chuck's voice got softer and Sarah squeezed a little tighter. "Then I woke up and remembered he was gone." Exhaling sharply, he threw his head back and shut his eyes, letting the sun warm his face and wash the images from his mind.

Sarah's hand moved to the middle of his back where it made slow, sympathetic circles.

"I think…" he said, so quietly that she didn't seem to notice at first, "I think that my brain was trying to tell me that it wasn't my fault that my father died. That even if I hadn't chosen to be a spy, even if I was still the kid he sometimes saw me as, he'd still be… I wouldn't have been able to save him."

He turned his attention back to the surf, and they watched the waves and gulls together. Just when Chuck was convinced Sarah would wait him out in silence, she spoke.

"I think you should listen to your brain."

"Hah," Chuck deadpanned, turning to her. "Where was this advice when you let them toss me into the loony bin?"

Sarah bristled. "Hey, who came back for you?"

He grinned at her, she grinned back, and with the mood lightened they both looked out at the ocean again.

"Chuck, I didn't get a chance to know your father that well, certainly not as well as I would have liked. And while recent events don't reflect well on my ability to judge a person's character," Sarah raised an eyebrow at him and Chuck couldn't help but snicker at the reference to her erstwhile boyfriend/betrayer/attempted murderer, "I think your dad was a great guy and I'm pretty sure he knew the risks of the world he— the world _we_ live in. He'd never want you to feel responsible for what happened to him."

"I know that. It's just…" Chuck sighed. "He tried so hard to protect us, Sarah. Dad gave up everything to keep us safe from his world. He became a fugitive, hiding in solitude for years so that Ellie and I could have a shot at a normal life. And after all of that, despite all his efforts, I became a spy anyway." Chuck raked a hand through his windblown hair. "I feel like I disappointed him."

Sarah's head jerked around to face him. "_No way_." The force of her conviction stunned him. "Chuck, your father never stopped being proud of you. I saw it in his eyes from the first day I met him. He would have stood behind you and believed in you, no matter what you chose to do with your life." She leaned in closer, looking up at him through her lashes. "Trust me on this one."

Chuck took a deep breath and leaned back, hanging from the rail by his arms. He peeked over at Sarah only to find her still locked on to him with the same expression, awaiting his response. "Okay," he said, resignedly. Apparently satisfied, she turned back towards the ocean, leaning absently against the handrail.

When he looked over at her, she was battling the stray blond hairs the ocean breeze was blowing across her face. He watched, entranced. It was a marvel that something so simple could be so endearing, and for the thousandth time he wondered how he could possibly be so lucky.

Sarah met his gaze, her head canted to one side and her brow scrunched adorably as she took in his goofy grin. "What?" she asked, finally.

Chuck gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing visibly. "I love you," he ventured, still a little apprehensive, still a trifle unsure.

The smile she returned bloomed startlingly bright in the mid-afternoon sun and for a moment Chuck forgot how to breathe. She leaned into him and raised her face to his.

"I love you too," she whispered, and punctuated it with a kiss that made the rest of Chuck's world disappear. All that remained was Sarah's mouth on his and a tingling sensation that started in his toes and moved rapidly upward.

When the fog engulfing him lifted and he could hear the sounds of the boardwalk again, he noticed that Sarah was watching him from a few inches away, a wry smile on her lips. "Wha…?" he mumbled groggily, and she beamed ear-to-ear.

"C'mon," she said, taking his arm and pulling him away from the railing. They resumed their walk, Chuck working out the fastest route back to their bedroom; Sarah stealing sidelong glances at him and blushing when she read his mind.

"You should be with Ellie," she said, deliberately switching gears. "It's Father's Day, you know."

Chuck turned to Sarah with a blank expression, then realizing she was waiting for a response, he mentally rewound the last few seconds. "Uh… you have a father, too. Will he be dropping by to spend time with you?"

She looked away.

Chuck frowned. "I didn't think so."

"It's different for me. I'm used to my father not being around. Besides, we never really celebrated holidays even when he was." Her tone grew wistful, and Chuck could feel the mood shift. _So much for racing back to the apartment_.

"Do you have any idea where he is?"

Sarah's eyes glassed over, angling to the side as she recalled the last message she'd received from her fugitive parent. "Canada, as of a few weeks ago. Somewhere in Saskatchewan, I think."

"Oh." That probably meant no surprise visit with a suitcase filled with cash, Chuck thought. He could tell Sarah had already dismissed that possibility from the way her face was set. How had she put it? _Be prepared for disappointment_.

Sarah quirked an eyebrow suddenly, and she turned to Chuck with a smirk. "Classic deflection, Agent Bartowski."

"What?" Chuck replied innocently. "I'm not an agent anymore."

She grinned. "And another."

Chuck narrowed his eyes and tried to give her an annoyed look, but it just made her grin grow larger and eventually he couldn't maintain his composure. "Okay, fine! What do you want to know?"

"Ellie? Father's Day?" Sarah reminded him. Her face took on a more worried expression. "Chuck, have you even talked to Ellie since the funeral?"

He winced. "Yeah, about that…" A wide range of emotions crossed his face, ending in one that was almost certainly guilt. "Sarah, Dad made Ellie a promise to finally explain why he left thirteen years ago and never to leave us again. He didn't get the chance to keep that promise. And when Ellie turned to the people she most cared about—including me—she found that they'd been lying to her all along. Even worse, we'd all been part of some secret conspiracy that _she_ _alone_ didn't know about yet had cost us our father's life. And somehow, I don't know how, she suppressed _all_ of that while we dealt with Shaw."

"Until the funeral," Sarah added, grimly.

Chuck put his palms to his forehead and closed his eyes. "Yeah. She was so angry she could barely look at me, much less talk to me. I don't think I've ever seen her like that. And what could I have said anyway? Would hearing more about the past three years have made her feel any better? Or would it have just made things worse? I thought that if I gave her some time, things would get better." Chuck sighed. "I guess I'm still waiting."

Sarah pursed her lips and stared ahead, silently. They proceeded down the boardwalk amidst the clamorous sounds, each absorbed in their own thoughts. When they reached the pier junction they both turned onto it without conscious negotiation.

"Ellie's got Devon," Chuck continued on seamlessly from before, "so it's not like she's by herself." He looked down and shook his head. "And besides which, it doesn't seem right leaving you alone today. We don't spend enough time together as it is, now that I've left…" he waved his hands around in the air in front of him, "you know."

She nodded and smiled sympathetically, but kept her gaze fixed purposefully ahead of them. Chuck realized what he'd just inferred and that they were both thinking the same thing. Sarah's unmasking as a CIA agent had undone three years of steadily increasing entrenchment within the Bartowski household. Her visa to Casa Bartowski had simply been revoked—by his sister.

As hot as Ellie's anger burned towards Chuck, it ran positively chilly towards Sarah. The enthusiasm his sister had previously shown for his on-again, off-again girlfriend had disappeared literally overnight. And it didn't take a spy to figure out that bringing Sarah over while his sister was still grieving her father wasn't such a good idea, especially when he'd been lost to the very same world Sarah symbolized.

Chuck sighed and changed the subject. "I miss it sometimes, you know. The team. The missions. The Castle. Even Beckman's briefings," he teased.

She laughed. "I'll make sure to tell her that." A far-away look appeared on her face. "I think she misses you too, Chuck, in her own way. The briefings aren't quite as… _lively_ as before."

They shared a brief chuckle, then an awkward silence as Chuck struggled with what he wanted to say next.

"I miss you sometimes, too."

She turned to him then, a quizzical expression giving way to resoluteness as she put both arms around his chest and stretched up to kiss him again. "I'm right here," she scolded when their lips parted. "And I'm not going anywhere."

Chuck gave her a warm smile and she returned it in kind. For a brief instant, he caught a glimpse of the woman he'd sat with on the beach three years before, a woman whose eyes never seemed to stop searching his face for signs that he trusted and believed her. And he had the strangest feeling that whatever vow she'd made back then, whatever contract she'd made with herself to stand by him and protect him, she was making again right now. But just as quickly as it had appeared it was gone, replaced by something else—a look that told him she'd had some kind of idea.

Sarah looked around the pier until she found a bench and pulled him over to it.

"Chuck," she began, "remember when I told you that Burbank was the only place I'd ever lived that felt like home?"

He nodded.

"It feels like home because it's where my family is. You, Ellie, Devon… even Casey and Morgan. All of you are my family now."

He nodded again, and when it didn't seem like enough he added, "I get that." Sarah beamed, and Chuck could tell his casual acceptance of her new status meant a lot to her.

"Well, one of the things that families do for each other is make personal sacrifices. Like when Ellie gave up her free time for a job so you could go to Stanford, or when you spent two years of back pay so she could have a proper wedding."

"Oh-kay, sure, but..." Sarah raised an eyebrow at his interruption and Chuck shut his mouth with a contrite smile.

"I know that Ellie and I…" Sarah hesitated, searching for the right words. "I know she's hurt by what I did – what I had to do. I'm not sure she'll ever forgive me, but I'll do anything I can for the chance that she might."

Quite sure his bafflement was showing on his face, Chuck chanced a question. "What are you saying, Sarah?"

"Chuck, I want to give Ellie something, something of great value to me. A sacrifice of sorts. But there's only one thing I can give her that she'd care about. It's the most precious thing I have, the most important thing in my life – it's the time I spend with you."

Chuck blanched. "Are you saying you want me to spend the already too few hours we have together with Ellie?"

Sarah shook her head. "No, no… not all of them. Just _some_ of them." She winced at the pained expression on Chuck's face and reached out to cover his hand with hers. "I'm willing to make this sacrifice because it's the only way I can think of to prove how important she is in our lives." She pulled back, sitting more erect. "How important she is to me."

Chuck looked away, his aversion to reducing the already meager time he spent with Sarah reigning dominant in his mind. "It's not just _your_ sacrifice," he said at last.

"I know," she lamented. "But Chuck, we have to fix this. We can't go forward in our lives with Ellie and I estranged this way. We have to start finding common ground, something we can build a friendship on. Unfortunately, right now the only thing we have in common is that we both love you."

Chuck looked up into a pair of bright blue eyes locked onto his own. The woman in front of him was fierce, determined, persuasive and, as always, ready to make personal sacrifices for the greater good. She was every bit the Sarah Walker he fell in love with. If she was ready to do this for the sake of his family, how could he refuse her?

He turned his eyes skyward, breathed out a long sigh and sagged backward onto the bench. "You realize you make it almost impossible to argue with you when you look at me like that, don't you?"

"So you'll do it?" Sarah asked, the corners of her mouth rising in anticipation of his answer.

After a beat, he sighed again and nodded. "Sarah, do you honestly think this is going to make a difference? I mean what could I even say to convince her how awesome you are that isn't classified or, you know," Chuck dropped his eyes, "something you told me in confidence?"

Sarah gave him a hard stare and Chuck could sense her protective walls starting to rise. It was what she always did when her past came under scrutiny. But this time something surprising happened—she blinked, swallowed, and set her jaw. "Tell her anything you need to, Chuck. I trust you." And she even managed a taut smile.

Chuck's eyebrows almost reached his hairline. "Really?" He felt his muscles tense involuntarily. Any moment now she was going to knock him off the bench and ask him if he was out of his mind. He was sure of it.

But while she definitely looked like she wanted to jump out of her own skin and run for it, she eventually nodded slowly and stretched the smile a little wider. "Really," she said through clenched teeth.

Chuck kept staring at her in awe until he noticed Sarah was looking at his mouth and he realized he had forgotten to close it. She snorted a laugh when he snapped it shut.

"Chuck, I know you. If anyone could possibly square things between Ellie and I, well… it's you."

He grinned in response. "So, when does this start?"

Sarah stood, reaching out her hand. As he took it, she said, "How about right now?"

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_[A/N Part II: Since this is part of the Season 4 Premiere Anniversary Challenge, all four chapters have been posted at once. No waiting!] _


	3. Endings and Beginnings

_**Endings and Beginnings**_

Devon was sitting at the fountain with a beer when Chuck arrived. His forearms were resting on his knees and he seemed to be staring through the outside wall of his own apartment. Two empties sat at his feet, which caught Chuck's attention immediately—Devon wasn't that much of a drinker. Either he didn't notice Chuck's approach or he was ignoring it.

"Hey Devon," Chuck called out. It took a second or two, but Devon's eyes snapped back into focus at the greeting.

"Hey, bro…" he replied, his forehead crinkling. "Didn't expect to see you today."

Chuck wobbled his head in agreement "Me either. I got time off for good behavior." He grinned. "Is Ellie home?"

Devon glanced at him briefly, then took a swig from his beer.

"That bad, huh?" Chuck joked.

"Not. Awesome."

Chuck made a sympathetic face. "Mind if I try to talk to her?"

Devon tilted his bottle towards the door. "By all means." Chuck smiled genially and turned, but Devon caught him before he took a step. "Uh, Chuck…"

"Yeah?" Chuck stared blankly as Devon struggled to finish his sentence. After several false starts, his expression fell.

"Grab another couple of brews out of the fridge, you know… on your way back out."

"Hah, sure thing."

He went inside.

Ellie was sitting on the sofa, a half empty bottle of Cabernet on the table in front of her. On her lap lay a weathered photo album that Chuck recognized from their childhood. Her head lay completely over the backrest, eyes closed. Chuck thought maybe she'd fallen asleep. He closed the door quietly and crept into the living room.

"I figured you'd be with Sarah today," Ellie said abruptly, her eyes still shut. Chuck hid the small jump he'd made at the sound of her voice.

"I was," he admitted, "until about a half hour ago. She got called into the office unexpectedly."

"Ah, the demands of life as a spy. Must be rough." Ellie's words were sympathetic, but her tone was anything but. "Still, I guess I owe the government a thank you. Without their intervention I might never have seen my own brother again." She fixed him with a piercing glare. "How's _that_ for irony?"

Chuck frowned and sat on the edge of the couch next to her. "Ellie, I know you're mad, but…"

"Two weeks!" Ellie interjected, her voice strident. "It's been _two weeks_ since the funeral, Chuck! Two weeks without a word from you! Couldn't you have spared a couple of hours from… _whatever_ it is that you're doing now to see if I was okay?"

"No, that's not…"

"You never answered _one_ of my voice mails! Did you even care if I was okay? Or how I was coping with all of this? With everything that's happened, I really needed someone to talk to. Someone," she cast a dismissive glance towards the front door, "who actually knew what went on."

She dropped her chin to her chest and sighed loudly. The pause afterward was like the eye of the storm and Chuck was so thankful for the respite he couldn't bring himself to break it.

"What happened to us, little brother? We used to talk all the time and now it feels like I'm the person you trust the least."

Chuck dipped his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them again he spoke from his heart. "Ellie, I know I should have come and told you everything right after Dad died. But I just couldn't do it. You'd been hit with so much, so fast… I couldn't bring myself to hit you with even more. I figured if I gave you some time, time to get a handle on things, time to grieve Dad…" Chuck dropped his gaze. "I thought there'd be time to tell you the other stuff later."

"You don't get to make that decision on your own, Chuck," Ellie said. "He was _our_ father, not just yours. I had to sit through his service knowing almost nothing about why he was killed right in front of us, Chuck. I still don't know. You should have been there for me, whatever it took."

Chuck sagged. "I know, you're right. I should have. It's just, you were so angry after the funeral—" Ellie's eyes lit with fire and Chuck sped up his delivery, "—and you had every right to be after so much had been kept from you. But I thought that anything I told you then would have just made things worse. Gotten you even angrier."

"You should have at least called."

"Honestly, El, I thought I was doing the right thing," Chuck replied. "But I guess I'm just an idiot. And I was wrong. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Chuck put his elbows on his knees and clasped his fingers behind his head, wondering if he'd finally screwed up so badly it was essentially unfixable.

Time passed as Ellie simmered.

"You're not an idiot," she said, finally. Chuck looked up with a hope for redemption that was quickly squelched. "But you _were_ wrong." She reached out to take another sip from her wine glass, and folded her legs underneath her on the couch.

They sat together without talking, Ellie sipping her wine and Chuck fidgeting under the weight of her appraising stares. He wanted to say something, anything, to break the extended silence between them, but the feeling of repentance held him back.

After a particularly lengthy stare she finally spoke. "Do you remember the Father's Days after Dad left?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

"I wouldn't let anything take me away from the house and…"

"…you jumped at every sound," Chuck finished. "You thought Dad might pick that particular Father's Day to come back to us and you were afraid you'd miss him. Yeah, I remember, why?"

Ellie averted her eyes. "Chuck, I…" She bit her lip. "I know it's crazy, but I'm still getting that same feeling. Like, he's still out there, somewhere, and one day he's going to just walk in the door…"

Chuck shook his head. "No, Ellie…"

"…like nothing's wrong and start apologizing for letting us believe he was dead and…"

"_No_." he said, firmly enough that Ellie stopped mid-sentence.

Chuck's brow knotted as he saw the small sliver of hope in Ellie's eyes. It wasn't fair that he had to do this to her now. Not after she'd already suffered so much. But he couldn't bear the thought of her holding on to a vain hope every Father's Day to come.

"Ellie… you were there. I was there. He's gone. He's not coming back."

She leaned forward, eyes narrowed. "We don't know that for certain, Chuck. The CIA didn't—"

"I held him in my arms, Ellie. I felt him go."

Staring into her eyes, Chuck saw the exact moment Ellie accepted the truth. Her face fell, and he moved closer to touch her shoulder. At his contact, she dropped her head to his chest and sobbed.

* * *

"So what _have_ you been doing for the last two weeks, anyway?" Ellie asked, still shoulder to shoulder with Chuck on the couch.

Chuck hesitated, his eyebrows rising and his mouth open in a look she immediately recognized. Pushing away, she turned a furious glare on him.

"You haven't gone back to the spy business again, have you? Chuck, you promised!"

"El…" he raised his right hand in a pledge, "I swear to you I have not, nor do I plan to, rejoin the CIA as a spy." The earnest expression he tacked on at the end seemed to sell it. Internally, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. If she had homed in on his potential _non-CIA_ spy activities he probably couldn't have been as convincing.

"So, what then?"

"Oh, you know," Chuck prattled, "I hung around with Morgan some, when he wasn't with Alex—uh, don't mention that—it's supposed to be a secret." Ellie did a double-take on the word 'secret' and he winced. "Sorry, sorry. And, of course, I spent time with Sarah, and… Oh yeah. I've been spending some days at the old house clearing up Dad's stuff."

Ellie balked. "The _old_ house? Didn't Dad sell that years ago?"

"Uh, no, no. It's still there and it's actually not in all that bad a shape considering that, you know, it's been empty for like seven years and the floor needs a good polishing and the rugs need to be replaced, maybe some new counter tops and appliances too, but it would be, all-in-all, pretty much…"

"Chuck, you're babbling," Ellie interjected. "Are you talking about upping the resale value with a few improvements?" Chuck met her stare guiltily and Ellie's eyes grew large. "Oh my God…"

"Actually, Sarah and I are thinking of moving in there… together," he blurted out.

Ellie stared at him for several seconds before standing up and taking a few steps away. "I'm sorry, Chuck," she said, "really I am. But I just don't know how to react to that right now."

"Well, I was hoping you'd be happy for us and wish us well. Weren't you the one that was so excited when Sarah and I babysat that house in the valley last year?" Ellie took a few more steps away and Chuck stood to follow her.

"That was before."

"Before? Before what? What are you saying, sis?"

Ellie spun to face him. "I'm saying she's not who I thought she was. She's…"

"El, it's Sarah," Chuck stressed. "You know her."

Ellie gave him an incredulous look. "_Know_ her? Really? Chuck, your girlfriend did nothing but lie to me for three years. When I think back now at all the times she… Do you know what she told me while we were being held hostage at the BuyMore? She said she was nervous because she'd never been that close to a gun before. And naïve me, I believed her and tried to comfort her. So, now I feel like a total idiot, because…"

Chuck tried to raise an arm to cut her off but Ellie would not be deterred.

"…because Sarah, it turns out, is some kind of 'La Femme Nikita' CIA assassin who recruited you into this life in the first place. She's undoubtedly been handling guns for years. And then… Chuck, I chose her to be my Maid of Honor! _God!_"" She put a palm to her forehead and groaned.

"Look, sis, she had to lie to protect our cover, that was her job. The important thing is that she stood up for us, putting her life on the line when it counted. And I'd do the same for her in a heartbeat."

"That's just it, Chuck. I don't _want_ you to have to put your life on the line for someone! Sarah's part of a world where that kind of thing can happen, a world I want you out of for all our sakes." Ellie retraced her steps and touched his forearm. "I'm afraid that if you stay together, someday you're going to be pulled right back in."

Chuck frowned. "No, that won't happen. Sarah understands the promise I made to you. She said we'd find a way to work it out and we have. I trust her. And you should too."

Ellie seemed to consider his plea for a moment, but shook it off. She leaned towards him and lowered her voice. "Chuck, I've been thinking about this. Isn't it possible that Sarah took advantage of the state you were in after Jill? Maybe she saw you were at a low point and seduced you into joining the government to be with her. All that time you guys were on-again, off-again, I could never understand what was going on. But now, now I get it. She was keeping you on the hook, getting you interested but not letting you too close. Using your attraction to her to lure you into doing her bidding."

Suddenly, Ellie's eyes shot open wide and she grabbed Chuck's forearm, making him flinch. "And the _worst_ thing, the very worst thing about all of this is that I supported her the whole time! I pushed you guys together thinking it was the right thing when all I was really doing was helping her pull you into her world. Oh, Chuck, I'm so sorry!" Ellie drew him into an embrace, but after feeling a series of brief tremors run through him she pulled back. "Chuck?"

What she saw wasn't the empathetic, revelatory reaction she'd been expecting. She stared at him with mouth agape.

Chuck was trying to suppress a laugh.

Flushing with anger, she smacked him on the arm. "I'm serious!"

"I know," Chuck apologized. "But your theory… I mean, it's just… it's all wrong."

"Really?" She put her hands on her hips and glared. "Well why don't you tell me what I've got wrong, then. The _truth_."

He knew that Ellie had just given him his opportunity to tell his side, to set things straight. But still, he hesitated, trying to find the right tack, debating how much he could really reveal. He took a deep breath.

"Our world."

"What?" Ellie asked, confusion written all over her face.

"You said she pulled me into her world. But you're wrong. It was _our_ world already, we just didn't know it."

"Chuck," Ellie faltered, "I don't understand."

"Our dad, Ellie. He was already up to his neck in that world. He left to protect us from it. All those years he was gone he kept watch over us, kept us safe as best he could, but the danger was always there. We were just oblivious to it. He was an amazing man, Ellie, but he couldn't stop everything, and eventually I got pulled in. And El," Chuck took a deep breath, "it wasn't Sarah who did that. It was Bryce."

Ellie gasped. "Bryce? Bryce Larkin? Are you trying to tell me that Bryce Larkin – from Connecticut – was a spy?"

Chuck nodded.

"But, what… when…?" Ellie rambled, and Chuck could tell her mind was awash with all the things she thought she knew about Bryce that she could no longer trust to be real.

"A long time ago, but—you know what? It's not important how it happened, what's important is that it did. And when it did, I was in deep trouble, El. Bryce sent me information. Information that was incredibly valuable to the government, but no less valuable to a number of other organizations who would have used it for their own ends. Those organizations would have had no qualms about torturing me to get me to cooperate, to give them that information.

The government's response to the situation was what you might expect from a large, faceless bureaucracy – they wanted to throw me in a bunker for the rest of my natural life – or until they decided, at their leisure, that I was no longer a threat to them. I came within a hair's breadth of that happening. My life, as I knew it, almost ended right there on my twenty-sixth birthday." Chuck paused to let that sink in.

"But wait, I would have known you were missing, I'd never have stopped looking for you," Ellie countered.

Chuck shook his head. "These are powerful organizations, El. They'd have just manufactured a fake death, one without a corpse, and you wouldn't have been able to prove otherwise. Trust me, they do this all the time."

Ellie considered this for a few seconds. "So, what happened?"

Chuck smiled broadly and fixed Ellie with a pointed stare. "_Sarah_ happened. The rest of the government wanted to lock me up and throw away the key but for some reason I still can't fathom she took my side and argued them out of it. She _saved_ me. Because of her, I got to stay here, in my current life, as long as I agreed to work with them. This is why we couldn't tell you the truth. If you knew, you'd become dangerous to the government and they might want to throw you and Devon in a bunker. I couldn't risk that."

Ellie looked away, and Chuck could sense her resolve weakening.

"There are so many more things I wish I could tell you about what Sarah's done for me, what she's done for this family. I can't do that, because the details are classified and I've already said more than I probably should. But there is one very important thing you need to know about Sarah and I, something you've got completely backwards:

Sarah never wanted me to become a spy. She did everything she could think of to convince me _not_ to do it, including throwing away everything she knew to run away from the government with me. I think she was afraid of losing the person she knew, the person that she, you know… loved."

Ellie's gaze fell.

"You were right all along, El. She _was_ into me, back then, even though she couldn't admit it to anyone else, even to herself. And though she may have lied to you about some things, like our cover and our missions, she never lied to you about what was most important – how she felt about me. Maybe you see Sarah as some kind of cold, unfeeling ninja assassin, but that's just not the truth. Sarah was a woman trying to find something worth caring about in a world filled with nothing but lies and deception. Together, you, Devon and I… we gave her that. We gave her a circle of friends who cared about her. We gave her a home."

Ellie broke eye contact with a shake of her head and a soft growl of protest. She trudged past Chuck to crash back onto the couch, grabbing a tissue on the way to blow her nose. Her eyes flicked from one spot to another around the room, the shifts seeming to echo the changing viewpoints battling it out in her head. After a minute, she emitted a loud sigh and seemed to sink even lower into the couch. She looked run down, exhausted. "Sarah didn't really have to go in to work today, did she?"

"Uh…" Chuck began, and Ellie pinned him with a piercing glare. "No. She just thought it might be better if I spent the day with you." He sat down next to her.

She shook her head and exhaled sharply. "And her own father?"

"He's not really around much anymore."

"So she's alone today?"

Chuck nodded.

Ellie chewed incessantly on her lower lip while she evidently came to a decision. She took out her cell and made a call while Chuck watched with rapt attention. "Hi. Uh… Look, maybe we should talk… Yeah, I'm sure. I don't know, how about right now? Chuck's over here and I made him tell me—" She stood abruptly, eyes wide, and Chuck followed her line of sight to the front door.

It was slowly opening.

They both knew that wasn't how Devon opened doors and from Ellie's sharp intake of breath Chuck knew who she thought was about to appear. Feeling a jolt of adrenaline speed his heart and hearing Ellie's premonition ringing in his ears, he jumped off the couch to stand next to his sister. Side by side, they looked on, mesmerized, as the door swung fully open.

But it wasn't their father coming back from the dead to utterly freak them out. It was Sarah.

She stood in the doorway, holding her own cell a few inches from her ear, smiling nervously. She made a small wave with her other hand. "Hi. Uh, is everything… okay?" she asked, noting the expressions on their faces. Behind her, Devon peeked over her shoulder from the courtyard in trepidation.

Chuck and Ellie let out their pent-up breaths loudly in relief. "Yeah," they said in unison, turning to share embarrassed looks. Ellie took a couple of steps forward before stopping with a puzzled look on her face. "You weren't outside the whole time, were you?"

"Uh, no…" Sarah replied in a conciliatory tone. "I was kind of in the neighborhood…"

"Then how did you know when I'd…" Ellie waved her cell phone.

For just a second, Sarah froze and Chuck held his breath. Then with an impish grin, she said, "Hello? _Spy_."

Chuck winced. It was funny. It was adorable. It was also the last word in the English language Sarah should have mentioned at that moment. In panic, he lurched forward, convinced he was going to have to interpose himself between them.

Time ran in slow motion.

For an instant, Chuck saw Ellie's eyes flick over to his. It was as if she was, at the last possible moment, deciding what she would do. A split second for a decision that would set the tone for all of their lives for months or years to come.

Then, before he could reach them, her eyes flicked back, an ear-to-ear smile split her face, and she pulled Sarah into a big hug.

Chuck yanked himself to an ungraceful stop and watched, entranced, as Sarah's initial stiffness melted, a little at a time, inside Ellie's embrace. He smiled when he saw Sarah tentatively put her arms around Ellie, her eyes fluttering closed when she squeezed. And he beamed when he saw the serene smile appear on Sarah's face, along with an emotion he had no words to describe other than… _home_.

* * *

Ellie touched Sarah's shoulder. "So, Tuesday at the old house, seven o' clock, to plan out the redecorating, right?"

"Right," Sarah replied, "we'll treat you to dinner after, it's the least we can do for your help." She smiled back at Chuck. "You ready, sweetie?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there, I just want to ask Ellie something, if that's okay." He widened his eyes purposefully.

Sarah got the message. "Sure. I'll just say bye to Devon and meet you at the car." She flashed a final smile at Ellie and closed the door behind her.

Ellie turned to Chuck. "So, a question?"

"El, do you remember Dad's yellow bathrobe? You know, the one he used to wear around the house all the time?"

She blinked twice and stared. "Gosh, yes. Although I haven't thought about it in years. Oh—wait a minute…" She walked over to the couch and grabbed the photo album, quickly flipping pages until she found one in particular. She put the album in Chuck's hands and pointed to a photo in the bottom right corner, an old Polaroid of their dad making breakfast.

He was wearing the bathrobe.

There was nothing on the left breast.

Ellie took in his expression and frowned. "What is it, Chuck?"

"Oh, nothing important," he said, handing her back the album. He smiled. "So, Sarah's waiting, I better go." The subsequent hug squashed the photo album between them and Chuck thought he heard a tiny "ow" from somewhere near his shoulder. When he pulled back he gave her an earnest look. "Thank you," he said, emphasizing each word.

She smiled back and breathed a laugh. "Hey, what are sisters for?"

She watched him walk to the door and open it, turning only when most of his body was already through.

"See you Tuesday." And with that, he was gone.

Ellie looked down at the album and the photo of her dad in the kitchen. Without taking her eyes off it, she drifted back to the couch and sat, even managing to pickup her glass by touch for another sip of wine. After several minutes of taking in every detail, she deliberately grasped the left half of the album and swung it shut. "Goodbye, Dad," she breathed softly.

She laid her head down across the backrest and closed her eyes.

* * *

_[A/N Part II: Since this is part of the Season 4 Premiere Anniversary Challenge, all four chapters have been posted at once. No waiting!] _


	4. Ricochet

_**Ricochet**_

She hears a voice in the darkness. It's a child and he's playing, changing his pitch and timbre as he speaks each toy's part. The voice is familiar to her. It's Chuck's. And all at once the feeling overcomes her.

She's in the old house again.

When she opens her eyes she sees him there, on the floor in the living room, playing with his old toys. Outside the sun is bright and the living room blazes with its golden light. She smiles at the familiar scene and there's a tug at her heart. It spurs a deep breath and when she takes it the memories triggered by the scent are overwhelming. How had she forgotten all of this? This place, this feeling. This… home.

Tipsy with nostalgia a face pops into her mind, and she glances down the hallway to the first door on the right. It's closed, as usual. She heads for it and Chuck looks up as she strides by. He seems to sense her destination and his eyes widen with concern. _The door's closed,_ they admonish. _You're not supposed to go in there._

But she wants to see him again. The way he was before everything happened. When the future still held a measure of hope.

And Chuck's rules certainly didn't apply to her, anyway.

She reaches out and twists the knob, and the door opens with a faint creak. Beyond, in the darkness, she sees the outline of the man she's expecting, his unkempt curls a dead giveaway even in the poor light. He turns at the sound and she smiles, starting forward, when a small hand tugs at her arm.

"No," comes the child's voice from behind her. She ignores it and tries to pull away, her concentration focused on the shadowed visage. But her attempt to move forward is arrested by another sharp tug. "You can't see him! He's gone."

And as she stares ahead the face in the shadows fades, the outline becoming indistinct in the gloom. She scans the room but he's nowhere to be found. It's empty.

Frustrated, she whirls on the owner of the restraining arm, invective on her lips, to find two eyes glaring up at her. Two jade green eyes fixed in a face twisted by fury.

"Eleanor, what…" she begins.

"It was you," Ellie accuses, her tone venomous. "He left because of you."

Unnerved by the virulence, the _hate_ in the stare, she backs away until she runs into the door frame. Ellie advances toward her, eyes boring into hers, the green darkening to black as she nears.

"It was _you_."

* * *

She awakens with a gasp.

Reaching out, she finds the arms of the chair she's still sitting in. Gripping them steadies her and she focuses on calming her breathing. It's mostly quiet in the room, save for the equipment. Her eyes dart quickly to the room's corners. Nothing around her has changed. It's safe.

As she relaxes, Ellie's face comes back to her, the anger still impactful even in memory. She knows it was just her own guilt manifested as her daughter, although the understanding doesn't lessen the hurt. She pushes it down into the place she keeps all her regrets, hoping to be done with it.

But it won't stay there.

The brief visit to what had been has awakened something within her, a spark of protectiveness for a family she'd long since set aside, for their safety as well as her own sanity. And with that awakening she could no longer rationalize that her actions in the past few weeks had been purely in the interests of her work. It was much more than that.

_I'm sorry, Ellie_. _ I couldn't do anything then. But I can do this now_.

In front of her, the display she'd been staring at is scribing its multiple tracks of irregular mountains and valleys. The scribbles remind her of watching the motion of musicians in an orchestra , a string quartet adding melody to the rhythmic drumming of the respirator. They stitch and it thrums. His chest rises and falls.

She fidgets with the bracelet on her wrist and lets her eyes wander from his face to the cardiac monitor, to the EEG and back to his face. She's stopped anticipating the next breath, fearing it will be the one that doesn't come. She's tuned herself to the pace and it's steady and strong.

Finally she stands, leans over, and tugs gently on the blanket to cover up more of the man's chest.

As she leaves, she pauses in front of the cart bearing the suite of medications. On it is a small wooden box of fine craftsmanship that seems incongruous next to the blandly functional containers beside it. Opening it, she finds a set of glass ampoules arranged neatly in two rows. The inside of the lid is lined with felt, colorfully imprinted with an elaborate design.

When she sees the emblem her eyes flutter and she grabs the cart to steady herself. The convulsions are mild but predictable, and she holds on tightly until the torrent of images subsides. Afterward, she takes a deep breath and peers into the box again. She knows what this illustration is, and she snorts in contempt at the hubris that allowed this telltale to be left in plain sight, putting her entire effort here in jeopardy.

It's the Zamibian national flag, its prominent green 'X' surrounded by quadrants of black, red and gold. And at its very center, the state seal – an ornamental shield flanked by standing gazelles.


End file.
